Digital Marketing is a Hot Cake in the market not only as career opportunity but also for business expansion and brand visibility in India and also across the globe. Let us first understand the concept of Digital Marketing industry before we understand the “Future of Digital Marketing in India”. Digital marketing is a type of marketing method where we promote our Products or Services through online channels. Therefore, in simple words, we are promoting our products/services to a customer who are using the internet.

The evolution of marketing era is always focused on what the customer is using currently. If you go back earlier in the history, you can see at that time when customers were using Radio, it gave birth to radio advertising and marketing. After few years when Television was invented & the boom of televisions, it is one of the universally used devices all around the globe, which allowed the companies to reach a mass audience with TV ads. Even today, TV advertising is one of the most used advertising strategies for companies all over the globe. The boom of Internet has extensively increased the number of customers using the internet, which gave a new turning point to the era of marketing, which was initially called Internet Marketing and is now popularly known asDigital Marketing or Online Marketing.

Compared to traditional marketing, With outstanding features like time & effort saving, Global Reach, cost effectiveness, high return over investment, instant response, flexibility, convenience, Digital Marketing is making a Strong impact in the world of Marketing & Advertising. The future scope of Digital Marketing industry is that there will be more visibility and brand awareness online, which will be easily accessible to the customers as per their exact requirement.

Now few of the questions that arise in our mind, which are all similar; “Is digital marketing industry still growing?”, “What is the Scope of Digital Marketing in India?”, “Does Digital Marketing in India have potential?”, “Will Digital Marketing grow in upcoming years?”

Digital Marketing Started growing in India around 2010. With the introduction of e-commerce companies like Amazon, Snap deal & Flipkart, the digital marketing field gained more visibility. Digital marketing in India had tremendous growth from the year 2010 until date. Various figures on the internet about Digital Marketing in India fastener the growth at 25% to 40% on an annual basis.

As far as the future of digital marketing in India is, concerned, you cannot even imagine that Digital Marketing will remain to be one of the fastest growing industry at least for next 5 years. There are multiple factors to prove that there will be definite progress rapidly in the digital marketing industry. To begin with, see below a research report from Statista Research.

Understanding the scope of digital marketing in a better way will help us to realize the future of marketing more accurately until there is an alternate or much more advanced way of marketing.

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Why companies use digital marketing?

Internet Users:With over 462 million internet users in India, businesses cannot ignore their presence online. According to Statista report, which came out in June 2017, shows that “India is the second largest internet users and will be the fastest growing online retail country in Asia Pacific”. Further, it says that India should grow at a staggering 31% per annum for next 5 years.

Countries with the highest number of internet users as of June 2017 (in millions) According to Statista

The above reports clearly shows that we will have increased number of internet users in the coming future that will help digital marketers to reach more relevant and accurate audience all around the globe with much lesser cost than compared to traditional marketing.

Mobile Phones:Nowadays Mobile phone is one of the most used devices for communication globally. As per a Statista report 358.46 million number of mobiles phone users in India, which will increase to 492.68 million by 2022. The mobile devices used currently are all smartphones with internet access that makes easier for the users to connect with businesses anytime and anywhere.

Number of Smartphone internet users in India from 2015 to 2022 (in millions)

Targeting Audience:In offline or traditional marketing methods, the business face difficulty to target the right audience with specific demographics and interest. These methods included advertising in bulk like newspaper, banners etc. Hence ending up with more cost and less ROI (Return on Investments). Also, there were no proper reports to analyze, understand and monitor the reach.These drawbacks enable Digital Marketing to win over offline or traditional marketing, as we can easily reach our customized audience and have categorizations such as gender, age, language, location, interest etc.

Low Cost and High ROI:Most of the companies today depend on Digital Marketing rather than traditional marketing because of Low Cost with High Return on Investment. This involves Start-up companies, Small and Medium Enterprises and also MNC's.

Today in this article, we look at what it takes to become a digital marketer.

Search engine optimization

Search Engine Marketing

Social media marketing

Mobile Marketing

Email marketing

Content marketing

Online Reputation Management

Inbound marketing

Conversion rate optimization

Web analytics and reporting

The in-depth knowledge of the above topics will make you a Digital Marketer.

Future of digital marketing in India for Professionals:As we have already discussed the potential of digital marketing industry in India, we now understand that it will create more opportunities for fresher and working professionals. Following are opportunities available in Digital Marketing Sector.

Get a Job in Industry:There are various specializations to start your career in digital marketing as mentioned below. The main focus should be on the core area of interest that helps to make an easy decision.

Digital marketing executive

Digital marketing strategist

SEO analyst

Social media specialist

Google AdWords specialist

Email marketing specialist

Web Analyst

Online Reputation Manager

Digital Marketing Manager

To become a successful digital marketer, you need to develop skills such as:

Creativity

Analytical ability

Willingness to experiment

Copywriting

Good knowledge about technology

Upgrading yourself by reading blogs of digital marketing influencers

Choose for yourself the best suitable opportunity for your career growth in digital marketing.

Earn as a freelancerFreelancing is nothing but taking projects directly from clients on our own and deliver yourself. This gives us the freedom to work on our own comfort time and location. Few of the websites like www.freelancer.com, www.fiverr.com, etc will also help to get freelancing projects. Freelancing can be done along with your fulltime job or you can take freelancing as your full-time job.

Implement on your own businessDigital Marketing will take your business to the next level of progress be it any sector viz. health, real estate, education, travel, hotels, IT, Finance, retail etc. To gain more benefits and revenue generation be updated with the latest trends in Digital Marketing. It has become necessary for every business owner to know digital marketing.

Start your own agencyWith the ability to manage a business & resources, you can start your own digital marketing agency. Understanding your client business and implementing digital marketing for the same is vital for the business growth and customer satisfaction. With the ability of global reach, digital marketing will increase the visibility of any business extensively.

Become a Professional Blogger:Your interest in writing good and unique content can also help you earn money, through Google AdSense and affiliate marketing. You can become a professional blogger with your niche content writing skills and earn great money online. You can start your own website or blog and work hard initially to generate more traffic to meet the eligibility criteria of Google AdSense.

Become a You TuberYou can opt for a career as You Tuber with your creative skills of content and video presentation. Gaining more subscribers and views on your own youtube channel will help you to start monetizing and make money with no limitations. Quality and optimization of your videos will give you more success.

ConclusionDigital marketing prepares you for a full-time job, freelancer, entrepreneur, blogger and you tuber. It will be an individual choice to opt for any one or multiple sources of income depending on your interest. Let us Digitalize and be a part of “Digital India”, one of the fastest growing industry

Well, this article might have helped you to understand the future of digital marketing in India.